


The inevitable coming-out-of-the-closet joke

by Lenore



Category: Castle
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-14
Updated: 2010-06-14
Packaged: 2017-10-10 02:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenore/pseuds/Lenore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan and Esposito get stuck in an elevator. They work on some of Ryan's childhood issues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The inevitable coming-out-of-the-closet joke

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for my [Birthday Smut-a-Thon](http://scribblinlenore.livejournal.com/522865.html), although it's more fluff than smut. Big thanks to the lovely [](http://celli.livejournal.com/profile)[**celli**](http://celli.livejournal.com/) for the very fun prompt.

  
Here's the problem with life, in Kevin's opinion: When you get stuck in an elevator, it's never in one of those pricey high-rises, the kind with a security guy watching the surveillance cameras, who'll pick up the phone at the first sign of trouble and call somebody who will run right over and get your claustrophobic self the hell out of there.

No, it has to be some dump on the lower East Side that smells like grease and boiled cabbage, with a relic of an elevator that's tiny, camera-free and has some magical cell-phone-signal-dampening properties. No doubt it's broken so often and the landlord is such a cheap bastard that the beleaguered residents don't even bother calling about it anymore. They just take the stairs, resigned to hoofing it for the foreseeable future.

Yelling—or for that matter, hysterical babbling—hasn't gotten anybody's attention, except Esposito's. And, yeah, the walls are definitely closing in, like something out of a B horror movie that Castle would know the name of, and they're going to die in here, no two ways about it. Beckett will have to identify their mummified remains, and Kevin's mother will cry extra hard because she can't have an open casket at his wake.

Apparently he says this last bit out loud. Oops.

"They know where we are, they'll notice when we don't come back," Esposito reasons and then ruins it by tacking on a less-than-reassuring, "You know, eventually." He claps Kevin on the shoulder. "Come on, bro. Might as well get comfortable."

He flops down onto the floor, cheerfully oblivious of the ancient, layered grime, the dried-on gobs of gum, the brown streaks of—Kevin settles beside him, more gingerly, mentally consigning the pants he's wearing to the garbage.

His watch ticks ominously in the close space, and he figures they have about fourteen seconds of oxygen left.

"You freaking out over there?"

"What? No." Kevin straightens his tie, even though it's strangling him. "I'm good."

"Uh-huh."

He could tell Esposito the truth, of course, except for how he can't, because it's just too embarrassing to tell anyone. Kevin can't remember now why he and Jimmy MacGowen thought it would be fun to play Legos in the hall closet. Six year olds just come up with these things, he guesses, or maybe it was because they were trying to build a replica Death Star, even though Kevin's mom had refused to buy him the actual set for his birthday, and it didn't occur to them that the darkness, while it did resemble the void of space, might also get in the way of seeing what they were doing.

The door knob to the closet had been loose since—well, as long as Kevin had been alive. It was a frequent topic of "discussion" between his parents. _Cormac, as God as my witness, if you don't do something about that—Not now! Can't you see I'm trying to watch the game?_ Thirty years later, Kevin can still recall, in ridiculously vivid detail, how he reached for the door when he and Jimmy decided they were done with the Death Star and wanted Doritos, how the knob went clattering to the hall floor taking with it their only way out, how he banged on the door yelling for his mother even though she'd gone to the store and would probably stop by Mrs. Egan's on the way home, which always took forever.

Jimmy MacGowen curled up and took a nap—that kid could fall asleep anywhere—while Kevin sat there in the dark, facing down an eternity trapped amongst musty-smelling snow boots, and maybe sobbing a little.

By the time his mother finally liberated them, grocery bag in hand, exasperated, _I told your father to fix that blessed door knob_, Kevin had acquired a morbid fear of closed-in spaces that he could never explain to anyone without inviting the inevitable coming-out-of-the-closet joke.

"So, you think Castle's onto something with this theory of his?" Esposito makes conversation.

Kevin shrugs. He only fuzzily recalls the details, something overblown and Castle-like, about furtive sex and the death of a child and bloody vengeance, or, okay, maybe that was actually the plot of _Friday the 13th_. The air was getting thin, he was sure of it, which made it harder than usual to keep Castle's theories straight from slasher film storylines.

"I still think the boyfriend could be good for it," Esposito contends.

"Hmm." Kevin would care a lot more if these weren't his last moment's on earth.

"Or, hey, Rush Limbaugh. That dude's got some anger issues."

Kevin nods. Whatever. His heart sounds like it's about to pound right out of his chest. Maybe he'll go into cardiac arrest before the suffocation gets him.

"Bro, I'm trying to distract you here. Work with me, huh?"

Kevin looks over, startled. Esposito smiles, wryly.

"Why would—"

"I know about the closet, bro."

"But—" That's not possible. How could he know?

Esposito laughs. "Your mom gets talkative when she has a few Irish whiskeys in her."

"I—you—" _God_, why can't his mother hold her liquor like every other Irish person in the world? He points his finger. "No more Ryan family social events for you."

Esposito smiles broadly, brown eyes warm and amused, and he's still smiling as he leans in and kisses Kevin.

"What—" Kevin murmurs against his mouth.

"Still distracting you. Different tactic." Esposito strokes his thumb along Kevin's jaw. "You can punch me or kiss me back. Either way, I figure it's better than you freaking out."

"Um." Kevin doesn't want to punch Esposito. So.

And, yeah, that's a pretty effective tactic, actually, since all he can think about now is _I'm kissing Esposito_. He curls a hand around Esposito's shoulder and leans in closer. Espo's body is warm and familiar, _partner_, and kissing him feels like finally getting something Kevin never even realized he was missing.

"This is probably pretty obvious, but," Esposito nuzzles under Kevin's chin, "I'm all for getting out of the closet."

Kevin presses his face against Esposito's shoulder and laughs, his shoulders shaking. He can feel Espo smiling, even if he can't see it, and that's distracting enough that when the elevator jolts suddenly and makes a loud, mechanical shriek and drops sharply Kevin doesn't piss his pants, not even a little.

The doors groan open, and the two of them just manage to scramble apart in time, and then Beckett and Castle are standing over them, looking surprised.

"_This_ is where you've been?" Castle says, hands on his hips, as if they've personally inconvenienced him.

"Castle thought you'd been pickaxed," Beckett explains, with a dry little smirk.

He insists hotly, "It could happen!"

"Sorry to disappoint." Espo scrambles up, offering Kevin a hand. "No pickaxe. Just some intensive therapy for Ryan's childhood issues."

Castle raises an eyebrow quizzically, and Kevin can feel himself coloring all the way up to his hairline, and that just makes Castle's eyes go wide and bright with curiosity.

Beckett mercifully preempts the third degree. "You two head back to the station. See if you can track down those receipts we found in the victim's pocket. We'll question the witness." She eyes the elevator. "Although I think we'll take the stairs."

"Good plan." Esposito puts a hand on Kevin's back. "Come on, bro. Let's get out of here."

Kevin waits until they're outside to say, "You know Castle's not going to let that go."

"Yeah." Esposito shifts a sidelong glance at him, his grin a little crooked, the glint in his eyes a lot sly. "And we're not going to tell him anything, and it's going to drive him fucking nuts."

Kevin is still laughing when they get back to the station. He totally approves of the joke being on Castle.

 


End file.
